A Database Management System (DBMS) comprises software that controls the organization, storage, retrieval, security and integrity of data in a database. The DBMS accepts requests from an application and instructs the operating system of a computer system to store, retrieve, and manipulate data.
A DBMS index is a data structure based on a database table and is used for locating data quickly within the table. Indexes are defined by selecting a set of commonly searched attribute(s) on a table. A platform-specific mechanism is used to create an index.
In the absence of an index, a database query searches every row of a table to find data specified by the query. For example, the table may store information about employees and a search for employees by last name may result in slow query responses. Defining an index consisting of the last name may speed up these queries.
If multiple indexes have been defined, some indexes may be not be useful for serving their intended purposes in light of other defined indexes which can be adequately used to serve such intended purposes. However, current DBMS software does not efficiently manage indexes so as to reduce or eliminate indexes that are not likely to be useful.
Accordingly, there is a need DBMS software to efficiently manage indexes so as to reduce or eliminate indexes that are not likely to be useful.